


By Her Side

by kmo



Category: The Fall (TV)
Genre: F/F, Missing Scene, s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 16:19:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3857101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmo/pseuds/kmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Because Stella needs someone. Someone she can trust. Not one of the men,” Reed says with a quirk of her full lips. “And right now, it can’t be me.”</p><p>Between the lines of s2 from Dani's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Her Side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marie_L](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_L/gifts).



Dani’s knees shake as she stands in the corner of the ladies’ lav watching DSI Gibson undress. It’s terrifying enough to ask to be put back on patrol, a terror made even more mortifying by walking in on her ice-water cold boss changing out of her starched Met uniform. Gibson doesn’t stop when Dani walks in, just serenely keeps unbuttoning her blouse, button after button, leaving Dani quivering in fear (and a little hope) that soon she’ll run out of buttons and she’ll be looking upon Gibson’s full shapely breasts. And Dani can’t decide whether Gibson does this because she is one of those stubbornly straight types who is completely oblivious to the effect they have on other women, or if in fact she  _does_  know and this is some kind of advanced mind-fuckery torture they teach at Scotland Yard.

Gibson asks Dani why she wants to be put back on patrol and Dani feeds her some half-arsed line about “bettering the community.” A line that is so transparently shite, Dani thinks that if Gibson actually believes her, it would make her unworthy of the superintendent’s uniform she fills out so well.

Dani, in turn, asks Gibson why she took her off the street in the first place. Her answer nearly breaks Dani’s heart.

“I wanted someone by my side,” Gibson says, her posh burr low and sad.

Before the end of Dani's shift, Eastwood stops by and tells her she’s been reassigned back to patrol. Gibson gave her exactly what she had asked for. She won. But why does she feel like she lost?

In bed that night, all Dani can see is Stella Gibson in her crisp black and white uniform, curves straining against a masculine silhouette, clip-on tie dangling provocatively between her breasts. How quickly Gibson seemed to want to be free of that uniform, its tight cuffs and hard buttons and sensible shoes. She thinks about Stella (and it is always  _Stella_ when begins to squeeze her thighs together and pinch her nipples, never Gibson) in her blouses, her hard stare and sharp demeanor shrouded in pale silk and smooth satin, the soft tumbling waves of her hair falling over her shoulders as she works.

The contrast fascinates Dani—mentally and sexually. It’s so fascinating, she’d rather spend the rest of Operation Music Man confined to the stale inside of a patrol car than face day after day in agonizing proximity to Stella. Dani learned long ago not to lust after straight girls—straight women—she can’t have. But every time she sees Gibson, that lesson is unlearned. Her heart swells like it’s the first time she’s ever looked at a woman that way, and suddenly she knows nothing at all.

*****

She’s back in the patrol car the next day, like nothing ever happened, like she had never met Stella Gibson. Back to the old familiar smell of sweaty upholstery, stale coffee, and greasy chips instead of infrequent but delicious whiffs of chlorine from Gibson’s hair and jasmine from her perfume. It’s the usual run of petty theft by day and domestics by night. Her new partner won’t shut up about FIFA and leeringly offers to be Dani’s “wingman” the next time they go to the pub in a way that Dani’s sure he thinks is supportive. She’s had worse.

Dani reminds herself this is what she wanted. Repeats it like an incantation as she takes a detour past the incident room back at headquarters, hoping to catch a glimpse of swinging blonde hair draped over a silk blouse, relief and disappointment washing over her like a tidal wave when she finds DSI Gibson nowhere to be found.

*****

Barely a week back in uniform and Dani’s kicking herself, sick with anger and something like guilt when they find out that piece of shite Spector had been creeping around Gibson’s hotel room. He’d been there waiting for her, so close he could have reached out and strangled her if he had wanted. Dani thinks the fact that he could have and didn’t makes him even more of a sick bastard than he already is—or at least a thicker one, ‘cause Gibson’s on him like a bloodhound with a scent, and she won’t stop until she’s got her pearly white teeth sunk into his neck.

The thing that makes Dani sick—with a particular brand of irrational guilt that she can thank her Catholic mother for—is that she hadn’t been there to protect her. That if Dani had stuck around and toughed it out, she would have been there with her that night, that they might have even caught him. And logically she  _knows_  the odds of that are bleedin’ unlikely. But Stella had wanted someone by her side. And Dani hadn’t been there.

Rafferty, her partner, elbows her in the ribs. “You’re a million miles away, Farrington. What is it, girl trouble?”

Dani resists the urge to tell him to eat a king-sized bag of dicks. “I can’t stop thinking about that fuck Spector in Gibson’s hotel room.”

“Fuckin’ creepy,” he says with a nod.

“She’s lucky to be alive.”

“She’s not the only one.” A strange look comes into Rafferty’s watery blue eyes. “You know what else I heard? That Gibson was down in the bar snoggin’ our pathologist earlier that night. Must have put on quite a show for Spector.”

“You’re full of shite.”

“My sister Niamh’s a clerk in a law office. She says her boss saw Gibson and the professor completely lezzing out.” He grins and makes a lewd gesture with his tongue that Dani is certain counts as a textbook example of sexual harassment according to the PSNI handbook.

Dani squirms and wishes she didn’t more than half believe him. Belfast is too fucking small.

*****

Dani taps her regulation black oxford against the cool tile floor impatiently as she waits for Professor Reed Smith to finish typing up her report. McNally was supposed to have done it, but with this new operation with the Benedetto girl, the task had fallen on Dani’s shoulders instead.

“I’ll be just a minute longer,” Reed says.

Dani offers a limp shrug, folding her arms across her chest defensively, trying to use her detective skills to understand what Stella Gibson had found so remarkable in Reed Smith. Dani had always thought the pathologist was pretty, even if her manner was blank and and a little bland. She wondered if they were still fucking. If Gibson picked up stray dark-eyed pathologists as effortlessly as she had picked up James Olson.

Reed hands her a folder with her report, pages still warm from the printer. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” Dani replies, a bit more surly than usual.

Reed’s soft brown eyes sharpen, the lens of a microscope coming into focus. “I didn’t sleep with her, you know.”

Two bright dots of color rise to Dani’s cheek. “I don’t know what you’re on about.”

“PC Farrington, if looks could kill, I’d be on my own slab,” Reed replies, sharp and tart. “I know what everyone is saying…but I want you to know, I didn’t sleep with DSI Gibson.”

“Half the Belfast bar association saw you kissing in the Merchant from what I heard.”

Now it’s Reed Smith’s turn to blush. “Well, that’s true. But the rest…we didn’t.”

Dani doesn’t know what she finds more unbelievable—that Reed and Gibson really did snog in front of the entire bar or that Reed might have actually turned Stella Gibson down. “Why didn’t you?”

Reed frowns, a sad smile. “I’m married.”

“That didn’t stop James Olson.”

“I’m married and my marriage vows actually mean something to me,” Reed says, a reassurance that sounds more for her own ears than for Dani’s.

“Why on earth are you telling me this?” Dani asks.

“Because Stella needs someone. Someone she can trust.  _Not_  one of the men,” Reed says with a quirk of her full lips. “And right now, it can’t be me.”

Dani feels queasy but forces herself to stand tall. “Thank you for your report, Professor.”

*****

They’ve got two officers stationed round the clock at the Merchant now. One in plainclothes inside the lobby and one directly outside Gibson’s room. The PSNI is stretched thin as it is with the Spector case, and this extra surveillance has most of them working overtime. Dani is among the first to sign up, and to her joy and dismay, gets assigned the graveyard shift guarding DSI Gibson.

It’s going for midnight when Gibson finally returns from the office. When she spots Dani outside the door, her tired eyes brighten a bit. “Dani. It’s nice to see a familiar face.”

Dani knows she’s just making small talk. “Good evening, ma’am.”

Gibson’s gaze goes far off and fuzzy for a moment, one of her thousand yard stares. “Why don’t you come in for a minute? You can tell me all about your exciting life on patrol.”

With minor hesitation, Dani follows her inside, watching as Gibson tosses aside her leather handbag full of paperwork and begins to kick off her heels and peel off her clothes, unbuttoning the top two buttons of her blouse, but going no further.

Gibson hefts a bottle of bright amber whiskey and pours herself a generous glass on the rocks. “Scotch?” she asks.

“I can’t drink during my shift, ma’am. Even if you offer it to me.”

Gibson takes her drink and collapses on the room’s sumptuous bed, putting the glass of scotch to her temple and closing her eyes. “He won’t be back here, you know. I’m all but certain. It’s a terrible waste of personnel.”

“We can’t be too careful, ma’am. I don’t mind the extra shift. I don’t think anyone does. You might not be PSNI, but as long as you’re here, you’re one of us.”

“Thank you, Dani, that means a lot,” she says, very sincerely. “Don’t stand there at attention, have a seat even if you’re not going to have a drink.”

Dani slinks down into an overstuffed armchair, but remains stiff and perched at the edge of her seat.

Gibson flexes her feet and wiggles her toes, working out the kinks in her muscles. Dani’s hands itch to massage her arches, run her hands up her calves, between her thighs. “So, is patrol all that you dreamed it would be?” Gibson asks, unmistakable tinge of sarcasm in her voice.

“Save for the business with Rose Stag….yeah it’s been…average. Not good, not bad.” Dani stops, hesitates a bit when she realizes Gibson is staring at her, that eagle-eyed gaze that always made her frightened and more than a little bit wet, as if at any moment she might sweep down and carry Dani off in her talons. “It’s not as…exciting…as the work I was doing for you.”

Gibson smiles down into her scotch. “Yes, I noticed you were able to keep yourself away from the investigation for almost an entire week.”

Dani feels her ears flush bright pink, damn her fair redhead’s complexion. “I should be getting back to my post, ma’am…”

Stella sits up on the bed and swings her legs over the edge, knees just inches from Dani’s own. “Not yet, Dani. Not until you’ve asked me whatever you came here to ask me,” she says, eyes pinning Dani to her seat.

“Who says I want to ask you anything, ma’am?”

Gibson sips her whiskey, bemused, knowing, making Dani feel utterly transparent. “My first degree was in anthropology, my second’s in mind-reading,” she says, teasing, but in a deadpan so dark and serious Dani almost believes her. “There’s a question burning on your tongue—you might as well ask it.”

“Everyone’s talking about you and Professor Smith here in the bar the other night.”

“Are they?” Gibson asks, so nonchalant they might as well be talking about the weather.

“When I told you that I was gay…you didn’t say anything…you didn’t,” Dani stammers, thoughts tumbling out in a jumbled statement more than a question.

“You didn’t ask me,” Gibson counters, gently.

“It wasn’t my place.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Gibson says, matter-of-fact. “You made certain assumptions about me because of the way I dress, because of my one-night stand with James Olson. It reflects a type of binary thinking that is of no use to an investigator.”

Dani swallows, chastened, blinking back tears. “Yes, ma’am.”

Gibson sighs, rakes a hand through her long blonde hair, and Dani can tell she’s more tired than angry. “You made yourself vulnerable to me, and I chose not to make myself vulnerable to you. It’s an old habit,” she says, giving Dani a reason but not an apology. “I’ve answered a question of yours, now will you answer a question of mine?”

“Okay,” Dani says, wishing she had asked for that whiskey after all.

“What’s the real reason you asked to be put back on patrol?”

Dani feels herself turn bright red, from the roots of her hair to the base of her spine. Her mouth goes dry. “I…I can’t tell you that, ma’am.”

Gibson arches one of her perfect brows, and Dani knows that she sees everything, knows everything. “I see.”

“Why ask me a question if you already know the answer? And why let me go if you knew I wasn’t telling the whole truth?”   _And why go after the woman who you know is unavailable when I’m right here?_ , the unspoken question that hovers in the air.

“I wasn’t sure at first. I thought you saw me as a kind of mentor. I didn’t want to…muddy the waters,” Gibson says, answering the question Dani didn’t ask. Maybe her degree really was in mind-reading.

“Sounds a lot like binary thinking to me.”

“Yes, it does,” Gibson says carefully, reaching out to grasp Dani’s hand, thumb tracing small circles over the inside of her wrist. Her eyes lock with Dani’s and she waits for her, inching forward in slow-motion. Unlike other predators, Stella Gibson seems to want to give her prey enough time to get away.

But Dani doesn’t want to escape, doesn’t want to be anywhere but where she is as Gibson....no,  _Stella_ …covers her mouth with her own, soft lips pressing, insistent and gentle, as her hands wrap around the back of Dani’s neck and pull her closer. Dani opens her mouth to moan only to feel Stella deepen the kiss, feel her tongue thrust inside, exploring, stroking, as Dani’s hands grasp on silk-covered shoulders, slick beneath her fingers.

When they break the kiss, Dani is practically in Stella’s lap. Stella’s own cool features are flushed, her breathing ragged and gaze ravenous. “Do you want to muddy the waters, Dani?” she asks, breathless, and the phrasing is awkward, but Dani swears it’s the sexiest thing any woman has ever said to her.

“Yes.” Dani thinks of Spector in this room, of the surveillance. “But we can’t…here.”

Stella nods, slowly, running her fingers along the nape of Dani’s neck in a way that makes her shiver all over. “Do you know some place we can?”

Dani grins, practically giddy. “My flat. It’s not far.”

*****

They’re a tangle of sweat-slick limbs, covered by Dani’s plain jersey sheets and the quilt her Nan made for her. Stella leans over to glance at Dani’s digital alarm clock. “3:15am,” is all she says.

Dani feels something, a pinprick of disappointment to her heart. “Do you want me to take you back to the Merchant?”

“It’s your flat, Dani. Do you want me to leave?”

“I don’t mind if you stay,” Dani says cautiously, “But we should be back before the shift changes at 7.”

Stella sets an alarm on her phone, still mesmerizingly beautiful even when doing something completely mundane. She turns off the bedside light and draws Dani to her naked body. Dani curls against Stella, rests her head on her chest, surprised—binary thinking again—to find that Stella Gibson of all people is a cuddler.

“I haven’t been sleeping very well. At the Merchant,” Stella says, the cover of darkness, the afterglow of sex letting her allow Dani a rare glimpse of vulnerability.

“That’s understandable.”

Stella pulls her even closer, combs her hands through Dani’s hair. In the grey light of the streetlamps, Dani can see her gazing down at her. Stella plants a tender kiss to the top of Dani’s forehead so sweet it makes her bones melt, and Dani would be willing to bet a hundred quid she never did that to James Olson. Muddied waters indeed. “Thank you,” Stella says in a rough, worn whisper.

“For what?”

“For your loyalty. For being here when I needed you.”

Dani gives a single kiss to Stella’s collarbone. “I’ve always been here.”

“I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> We get a mention of Reed's kids, but not her husband in canon. Alan Cubitt gave an interview where he said the reason Reed turned Stella down was because she was married. So, I've incorporated that here, even if it never was stated in the show.


End file.
